business essay

How Techniques of Rationalisation Aim to Increase Efficiency and Control in Organisations

Published: 03, October 2016

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Explain how techniques of rationalisation aim to increase efficiency and control in organisations. Compare and contrast the rationalisation perspective with ONE of the following topic areas.

Chosen topic: Leadership, power and politics

Rationalisation is important for firms which they should be highly considered about. It is a core factor that would affected the decision making of the owner in order to decide their choice of choosing strategies or methods to organise and manage the business. A rational business could be described as a business that used the less resources to gain as much advantages as they can. Additionally, the business are mainly formed by bureaucracy structure and a standardised production line. This could lead the business to achieve a high level of efficiency. Apply this terms to the junction hotel, junction hotel is not rationalisation. The case study has shown us that junction hotel has under-investment within a poor management. For example, restaurant of the junction hotel. They have got a team of skilled and experienced staff but the poor management and none of standardised instruction provided has lead to an erratic levels and poor consistency of standards. This evidence indicates us that junction hotel have got skilled staff as their resources within a high quality. However, they did not take the advantage of it which also mean they could not reach the highest efficiency.

There are some features for rationalisation such as to elimate unnecessary equipment, personnel or process from a group of business, factory in order to make it more efficient and the organisation of a business according scientific principles of management in order to increase efficiency. In addition, rationalisation also included psychology for example behaviour about which one feels uncomfortable or guilty .organisation is consider about this is because this can affect them, for example if a business have a good management then workers in the business will work more comfortable and they know what they need to do and work more harder under this good atmosphere, this will benefit the business as the workers work more harder, that’s why organisations consider about it.

To further know about what an rational organisation is, by looking at the old century theorists which can give us more idea about it. Taylor( 2014) An industrialist suggested five way that a manager should perform. The five functions are forecasting, organising, controlling, coordinating and commanding (KING and LAWLEY, 2013: 46). In order to describe the five function, first to have a plan and a rough estimate before start doing the project. Then shared information from each of the member to get well organised and then up a task or goal to achieve this job usually the manager in charge the whole process. Weber a sociologist which outlined a few features including the hierarchical structure. This is mean structure of management. Different staff have their own role that have their own task that need to concentrated on. Ford bring out a theory that called Fordism, this is a term widely used to describe the system ofmass production in early 20th century by theFord Motor Company (2015). Ford has designed the mass production technique in order to spend less time to produce the most. Taylor (2011) suggested the scientific management could bring the maximum prosperity to employees. Taylor try to use this method to increase efficiency by using the machinery to get the job done as quickly as possible.

Rational organisation can help to increase efficiency by clearly define the role of each member in the company, also purchase stable quality to the customers. As they are clearly define costs for the firm can be reduce so the firm can use minimum resources to achieve the maximum efficiency, also increase the productivity, these clearly show that firm can make a high amount of profit without a huge loss and more likely to break even. For example if the business owner can clearly define what he hopes to accomplish with a certain course of action, what the alternative choices are, and what the likely outcomes are, he can probably ignore workplace politics and simply rely on the formal structure of the company to carry out her orders.

looking at the case study junction hotel seen to have a lot of trouble under-investment and a very poor managing system inside the business, if one of the department doesn’t do well it will influence to the other department this will create a bad atmosphere inside the company and also keep getting far away from the aim of rationalisation . For example inside the restaurant they have some good chief which is well trained and can cook delicious food to serf the customer , but as the bad communication within the staff and apartment they seen to make a lot of mistake and argue at different things which make it even worse and doesn’t help to fix the problem at all. They had quality chef but they didn’t have a good managing system which they waste the chance to perform even better.

There are a few ways that they could do to get rid of this situation and improve their quality of service and performance. The first important things they need is employed a good manager with good leadership skills or good communication skills that can lead the staff to a right tract so that they can do their job in the right direction, setting up tasks and clearly given out order can help to the quality of the food and the time food takes to the customer can be reduce. Also as a leader of the department to communicate with other department to share information from each other to help improve and clearly receive the order with each order, one of the example is office keep changing the menu but didn’t tell anything to the chief and the chief is really unhappy as the people in the office didn’t communicate with them well enough so that increase their work load, it make them more difficult to finish off their job also influence the quality of the food and cost of time. These can be done either employed a new head chief or to train on their communication skills. Although the organisation need to put some money on training staff and good communication with the staff , the more action they put in they more benefit they will get back on return, so do more and gain more.

McDonaldizationis the term invented byGeorge Ritzerto describe a sociological phenomenom that is happening in our society (Rogue Valley Group, 2000-2009). This company work in a rational way and have a high performance. Mcdonaldsation suggests that the rational production can be seen in the fast food restaurant. McDonald is a well-managed organisation which is rational and hierarchy structure. All the task have already break down into different part for different staff to work on to match their role. For example a staff work in the cash machine and take order from customer , a staff working on food and drinks when they see the order they will take what on the screen to the desk ,chief will keep cooking and fill out what empty which they are well organised and knowing what they have to work on . As all the staff are doing their own job the quality of the food and drink will make no big difference between each other and the time taken will stay the same ,as the performance go well less error will make. This system help the company train new staff more quickly, as they are a fast food restaurant it will be high turnover for their company as most people come to get a part time job so using this method reduce the time of training unskilled staff also reduce the cost and easily replace. This is one of the successful company which have chosen a right method to lead there business become success.

Travelodge is a private company operating in the hotels and hospitality industry throughout theUnited Kingdom. Branded simply asTravelodge, Same as the McDonald they break down the tasks in a very easy way for the employees, different form other hotels they only do online booking and when customer come they just to show their id for check in their room and the staff just given out the key to them ,for checking out is the same process give them they key and that’s check out completed , in these progress there aren’t much to do for the staff as the company have set up everything’s for them in a easy way to work on compare to the other hotel they are doing a very easily job , it is quite similar with the McDonald as if an unskilled employees come to work, it take very short time to help he/she to have the knowledge how to work here and as the work break down in this very easily way so the quality of the service can stay the same for sure as the job they are doing is well organised. This is the similar methods between two different type of company and the method lead them to success.

Although rationalisation is very important to the business but there are some important things that can also influence the business. For instance, company can think of leadership,power,politics these three topic also appear to the organisation. Leader ship is one of the most important things that a manager or group leader should have to well organise and control the staff which work under them, given out right order to different staff cause every decision the manager made can affect the company, different staff have different strengths and weakness so the manager must look very carefully what he/she can do and can’t do , in other way to give them a right order to complete and perform much better within their skills. Also a good leader must have look after the staff well as to see what they need and what problem they are having while during the work, as if he pay attention on them they will be more likely to follow your lead and complete the task in a much higher performance. A good leader will also need power to in case some not behaviour staff, cause not all of the staff will listen to the order some this is time to show that you got the power to control them to work and punish them if they didn’t work on their job probably. Refer to (Mr P Tailor and Mrs S. Tailor) An essential part of leadership or management is to influence the people you manage so that they do what you want them to do. So if a leader is too soft then he/she will be very difficult to lead a team that is lazy and uncontrollable, sometimes becoming an arrgasive leader can do the job easily and better as people will listen to your lead as they afraid of your power and you have the right to control them. Politics is some kind of rule that set up by the workers or manager to follow, different office have different politics for example if you are new to the an organisation you will need to make some new friends or build some alliances in case that you have something didn’t understand that someone will have your back and help you with it, sometimes if you have a boss which is very lazy you will need to put extra hard work yourself to finish off the work.

In junction hotel they have a good team of cleaner and they are all skilled, but when they start working they aren’t doing as a group is just like an individual task work as they received the message from the boss and they just follow the lead at what people told them to do so there aren’t any communication inside the group refer to paragraph on top the office politics is the rule you follow to make you survive in the company, one of the rule is to build up alliance in the other hand is to make friends so that when the work start they can communicate which person working which part and share the information all around this cost less error as well ,also this gave you power if the boss doesn’t do something right for example cut down the salaries that at list you can have your teammate to support you and complain about it so you can get the strength to fight back. Back to the case study as the cleaners didn’t have a good leader leading them so quality of the job will be poorer as they have to follow instruction to do what they need and the manager doesn’t communicate with them very well. These will be a big trouble if things still stay the same.

Refer to junction hotel (KING and LAWLEY, 2013,162-163) Linda Wilson meets graham Effingham for a meeting. There are some problem with the kitchen so Linda have a chat with graham to ask for future information to see what’s going on at the moment. Graham is doing his job well as he won awards for what he cook to the customer, however food is not getting out quick enough and wrong order . But graham think he did the job all right so he didn’t talking to Linda politely. This action cause too problem first graham didn’t respect to Linda in a polite way and try to argue with her, other things is he can’t give an order and control his staff probably, he is more likely to do his job rather than do what a leader should do to take the lead and solve out the problem they have, so that why he is not a leader material. Linda have a problem with that she is too soft and people don’t listen to her as she is not strong enough to control the staff, she should be more arrgasive, but one thing she did good is she try to communicate when there is a problem having with the kitchen.

If an organisation would like to cut costs, they usually will cut down the wages of the employees but this action will cost a lot of trouble that not appear so soon but harmful to the business. Pay them less, and they'll reciprocate with less work (Ray Fisman) it old us that when people get low pay they will unlikely to work harder as they didn’t feel happy about the money they get, the more and the less they do will get the same amount of payment so they will rather work less and not do work any harder, this can cost a lot of trouble with the business, first less performance low quality of product and service, high turnover staff will rather work in a different company that will pay them more money, bad quality lead to the customer complain about it and lose some new and old customer. This evidence told us that before doing a decision you must think about the cost and benefit do see if it is worth doing it before take action, the best way is to have discussion with the employees and try to know about their feeling and explain why the firm need to make this decision to let them know whats going on.

In conclusion, the concept of rationalisation could turn the junction hotel in a positive way which can help the company to cut cost, also increase the efficiency and also help to increase the profit that they could make. This could help the business perform very well and good reputation. Moreover, the hotel could gain a growth of size in the market which would increase their competitive advantage. Nevertheless, rationalisation may have affected the business into a negative way as cut cost may impacted the staffs to be unsatisfied. So, the manager should communicate with workers and understand their thought and feels so that everyone to use their potential to work harder as they could to help junction hotel to become success and gain the most advantages with the competitors. Also managers in the junctions need train on their leading skills to get more power and more comfort on leading people as under the poor leading skills that seem to be a lot of trouble having around the restaurant and other department.

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